***
Den första dikten är skriven av Kevin Cooley från Lake View, nära Buffalo. Han jobbar som förläggare.
Blowing Games into Cartridges, by Kevin Cooley
(from Dangerous to go alone! : an anthology of gamer poetry. Manawaker Studio, 2015.)
Our holy breath blew solutions
into corroded copper pins,
blowing like we were breathing
for someone else's lungs;
a
mouth-to-mouth
matching of lips and
hard grey plastic; stray,
galvanized spittle, maybe,
the real culprit behind
why we could reach in
and puff the tumors off
of our favorite
1s and 0s. Maybe.
***
En av de meriterade poeterna i boken är A.J. Huffman. Hon har gett ut åtta chapbooks och varit nominerad till Pushcart Prize. Hon är även grundare av, och redaktör för, det lilla bokförlaget, Kind of a Hurricane Press.
I boken bidrar hon med två dikter, varav följande är en "femradare" om ett mycket känt spel.
A Digital Icon is Born, by A.J. Huffman
(from Dangerous to go alone! : an anthology of gamer poetry. Manawaker Studio, 2015.)
Pill-popping ghost
buster. Manic munching,
fruit stealing, jaundiced video
game star.
***
Så kommer vi då till höjdpunkten i boken. Jag måste berömma redaktören för antologin, fantasy-författaren CB Droege, till hans fingertoppskänsla. Boken har hämtat sin titel från en textrad ur samlingens särklassigt bästa dikt.
Den är skriven av den helt okända Michelle Markey Butler. Hon har hittills bara gett ut noveller inom science-fiction och en medeltidsinspirerad fantasyroman. Alltså ingen poesi! Hon jobbar vid University of Maryland College Park där hon undervisar i medeltidens litteratur, Tolkien och samtida fantasy-litteratur.
Jag tycker att hon borde lägga ner Sci-fi:n och ägna sig åt poesi istället. Dikten är en tänkbar kandidat till Årets dikt och den är alltså skriven av en "amatör".
Pause, by Michelle Markey Butler
(from Dangerous to go alone! : an anthology of gamer poetry. Manawaker Studio, 2015.)
I don't like to go through his things,
Look into drawers I've never touched
Open cupboards full of the accumulated detritus
Of a long life spent in one house.
But cleaning, or arson, seem the only options,
So we clean.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
What when there is no time to rage?
Everyone knows things can change suddenly
Between one heartbeat and the next.
But also, and less discussed, when there is no next.
Passing through nature to eternity.
A pretty phrase. Too pretty for what followed.
Unwelcome choices, and absence,
Cakes and chicken half-sympathy
And half-relief that the maker's family was spared.
This time.
The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.
Prayers and incense, and more prayers,
On beads and knees, and knees again.
I don't know how much of it I believe.
Neither did Hamlet, apparently.
Or Shakespeare. Or both.
In the bottom drawer, I find the console,
Ribbed black plastic wrapped in an old sheet.
Cords neatly coiled around controllers
Why had he kept this? He never played a videogame in his life.
I hadn't in three decades. I'd spent much of my teens steering a fuzzy-edged shape
Into smaller blinking shapes, until missed a step and fell, or touched a forbidden object.
Died. Started over.
The box warmed in my hands.
It had been important to me, not to him,
But - no, and so - here it was, saved, shrouded. For me.
It is dangerous to go alone.
Incongruous, perhaps irreverent,
Bumping shoulders with Thomas and Shakespeare.
But what was more dangerous than the undiscovered country,
Journey both birthright and doom. No reset. No traveler returns.
Play, and play, and play.
Which is not quite pray
But close.
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